Bedford successfully hosted the annual Cordon Trophy last night – but with a few minutes to go before it was due to start that didn’t look very likely! The door to the second floor where our equipment is stored had, for the first time in 10 years, been locked and if there was a key in the building it was not to be found. Fortunately a member of the Social Club’s darts team came to the rescue. With an impressive array of tools and no little skill he managed to remove the lock altogether and, in the nick of time, we were able to set up the 16 boards needed for the 8 teams of 4 from Luton, Leighton Buzzard (2), Milton Keynes (2) and Bedford (3).
As usual the games were played over 10 minutes each side with 5 second increments. We were without usual top board Steve Ledger, who was not well, but Ravi Arulnandhy, Toby Cox, James Gardner and Mike Botteley made a formidable Bedford A team. Toby and James won all their games. However our score of 14 out 16 was only good enough to match that of Leighton Buzzard A with FIDE master Gary Kenworthy on top board so the trophy is to be held by each club for six months (at least that is the intention!)
Not far behind was our C team in third place with 10.5/16 and our B Team in fifth place with 7/16 – both well clear of Luton, Leighton Buzzard B and Milton Keynes B. Youngsters Ramsey Dairi and Lucian Cox on board 3 for Bedford B and C respectively had some good results. Ramsey edged their individual encounter.
The tournament was, as usual, efficiently controlled by Adrian Elwin – full details of results may be found here.
Peter Gill, 30th September 2022
